The chief executives of America’s biggest companies are on track for another banner year of compensation, fueled by a soaring stock market and an improving economy….Total pay—including salary, cash incentives, equity, perquisites and more—rose at least 9.9% for half the executives, the fastest annual growth since 2014, while about a quarter of the executives received raises of 25% or more. Most of the gains came from stock awards, as firms largely held the line on cash compensation and stock options.
So the top half of CEOs saw their pay go up more than 10 percent. I don’t know exactly how the rest of us did on that scale, but people with bachelors degrees are a rough proxy for the top half of the general population. According to the BLS, their pay went up 1.6 percent last year. So I guess the CEOs did pretty well. It’s no wonder they were rewarded with a nice tax cut from the Republican Party.
